Warm
by elixia13
Summary: Mulder recovers from the events of the Biogenesis mytharc and "warms up" with Skinner. Sequel to Clean.


Warm

Rating: NC-17  
Pairing: M/Sk

Spoilers: SR-819, Biogenesis, 6th Extinction, Amor Fati  
Warnings: explicit m/m sex, language

Notes: This is a sequel to Clean, and is probably best understood by those who've read that story. If you're reading this one first, it's important to know that Skinner has been purged of the nanocytes and also manipulated Krycek into helping Scully get Mulder back.

Summary: Mulder recovers from the events of the Biogenesis mytharc and "warms up" with Skinner.

I remembered seeing a vague flicker of Scully's hair, her tears, stumbling--and then more darkness. Before that, there's mostly pain and confusion, fear, a pervading chill working in through my skin, a brief moment of warmth. I almost grasped something in between, a jumbled mass of images--Fowley, Spender Sr., my own face distorted, the bright beach I've visited in dreams since early childhood.

When I first woke up in the hospital, I felt a weight on my hand and looked to see who was there. Skinner, in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt, sat in a wheelchair next to my bed. I couldn't make any sense of the image, but I knew there was something I needed to remember. As I lost my fragile hold on consciousness slipped away from me, Skinner met my gaze and smiled at me while my eyes slid closed again.

When I awoke next, I felt much more aware. I woke to a doctor examining me and saw Scully right behind him, shadowing him, watching his every action. I panned my eyes across the room and spotted Skinner, in jeans and a green shirt this time, leaning against the window pane, light filtering in behind him. I blinked my eyes and realized that Scully and the doctor were talking to me. Scully smiled at me, took my hand.

"I'm going out into the hall with the doctor, but I'll be right back, Mulder. Skinner..." she trailed off and looked over towards the window. "He'll stay with you, okay?"

I nodded and heard her leave, the door clicking quietly closed. Skinner walked over then and moved himself into my line of sight.

"How are you feeling, Agent Mulder?" His gaze seemed watchful, as though he were searching for something in me, but I couldn't think of what he was looking for. Every time I tried, I found an internal fuzziness that kept me from remembering.

"I can't think," I admitted.

He smiled slightly, warmly. "They have you on some serious antibiotics to make sure you don't get an infection, as well as some pain meds, which I think you should be grateful for. They'll taper the meds off soon, and then you'll be able to think again."

I nodded and closed my eyes and then shivered in the ridiculous cold of the hospital room. Immediately, I felt movement above me, a current of air pushed down and then a blanket, tucked around my feet and shoulders. I didn't quite understand what Skinner was doing there or why he was being so kind, but I accepted it without thought. With his solid body standing next to me, I felt safe.

For the rest of the week I spent in the hospital, I didn't see Skinner. He'd been right--they took me off the heavy pain meds after a couple of days, and my thought processes jumped back up to speed, though some memories from the period when I was ill were still frustratingly elusive, and headaches occasionally took me by surprise. The last thing I could recall at all clearly was talking to Scully on the phone from my apartment. After that, events fragmented as though in a kaleidoscope, and it made my head hurt to try to realign them. Scully assured me that it would come to together eventually, but I was nervous.

Once my thinking cleared and my head-wound--surgical site, whatever--was healing, every possible kind of therapist the hospital housed came by to subject me to tests of varying degrees of unpleasantness. Because of the mysterious nature of what had been done to me, my coterie of visitors included speech therapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, an optometrist, an otolaryngologist, a psychiatrist, and a social worker, who I very nearly tossed out the door. The psychiatrist, I gathered, had last seen me when I was screaming my head off in a padded room. I took great pleasure in discussing my Oxford credentials with him.

A Bureau shrink also visited me to evaluate me for duty, and she quickly decided that I would resume field duty as soon as my neurologist cleared me, which would probably be in a couple of weeks. The doctors declared my speech, hearing and vision entirely normal. My balance and coordination were found to be a little off, but the physical therapist agreed that the remaining drugs floating around my system were most likely to blame.

Still, though I acted fully confident with the therapists and the doctors, I felt a core of uneasiness inside myself. What if the symptoms didn't go away? What if they consigned me to desk duty, and I could never carry a gun again? Furthermore, what had really happened to me? I'd extracted from Scully the details of how she found me, where she found me, what condition I was in. Against the "better judgement" of my doctor, I read my hospital records from the time before my mother--my _mother_--had checked me out.

What I found there made me physically ill. I remembered some of it from my perspective--the maddening voices worming around in my skull, the righteous, uncontrollable anger, the conflicting movements of my body that nearly paralyzed me. Scully came in one afternoon to find me gulping back emotion over words like "hostile," "unresponsive," "irrational," "psychotic," "seizure." The variety and amount of drugs they had pumped into my system horrified me. What could they have done to me? What if I had never come back? Why did they let me come back?

On Friday morning, they finally released me, since I was only experiencing an occasional bad headache. I rode home in Scully's car, and she settled me back into my apartment. She cautioned me to take it easy and stay in bed, then she went to the Bureau to get some work done.

I knocked around my kitchen and living room for the rest of the morning, looking at the mail I'd accumulated, checking my e-mail. Around lunchtime, the phone rang, and it was Skinner, not Scully as I first suspected.

"When do you expect to return to duty, Agent Mulder?"

"Uh, I'll be in on Monday morning. Desk duty, until my neurologist clears me. Is that acceptable, sir?"

"Well, _I'm_ not clearing you for desk duty until Wednesday at the earliest, and I don't want to see you in the building before then. In fact, I think you should work half-days through next Friday. That'll give you a few days to get up to speed."

His concern was solicitous and frustrating, but I didn't have much choice other than to agree. He could have kept me out of the office all of next week. I remembered, too, his oddly comforting presence in my hospital room.

"Um, thank you, sir. There's still a lot I don't remember, I understand from Scully that you helped me."

"You're very welcome, Agent Mulder." His voice in return was gruff, but questioning. "What are you able to remember?"

I honestly had no idea what he was fishing for. "I remember waking up in the hospital, and you were there with Scully and the doctor." The image of Skinner inexplicably folded into a wheelchair flashed into my mind. "Oh! And before that, you were injured?"

"No, Mulder, I was...recovering. I'm sure Scully can give you the pertinent details." He paused, sighing quietly. "You remember nothing else from before that?"

"Nothing that makes any sense." I couldn't figure out why, but I felt like I was disappointing him.

"Very well, Agent Mulder. Take care of yourself."

And then the line was dead, and I felt suddenly restless. I put on shoes and the Yankees hat Scully had bought me to cover the shaved patches of missing hair. I thought I'd take a walk, pick up some Chinese, maybe some videos to keep myself out of trouble.

I love Scully dearly, but sometimes she treats me like an errant child, the child she's not likely ever to have. For that reason, I can't bring myself to be short with her, to take her to task for her scolded, "Mulder!" or her shepherding hands. When she ran into me in the hallway as I was leaving my apartment, her automatic assumption that I was intending to go into work galled me.

"Mulder, you should be in bed!"

I started to argue, but then I felt her hands on my arms, her mouth on my forehead, and something was released inside me. Memories shook loose and suddenly surfaced: Skinner's eyes, wide and sad, his thoughts repeating in my mind, //Mulderwanthim helphim wantMulder lovehimprotecthim helphim//. The feeling that I had lost, irretrievably, any hope of happiness with the man I'd been wanting for so long. The warmth of his arms around my shoulders, the comfort of his beautiful thoughts.

I gasped, coming out of the memory to find Scully staring at me, her blue eyes sharp and concerned. I didn't struggle as she led me to my couch and sat me down, placing a glass of water in my hand. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears as the memory settled down within me.

He hadn't said a thing. He was hoping I would remember. If I hadn't remembered, he would have never said a thing. Goddamnit, I thought. Damn him and his fucking cautiousness. I felt that I'd been given a second chance--_we_ had been given a second chance--and I didn't want to waste it on tip-toeing around the truth.

I opened my eyes again to find Scully sitting next to me on the couch, appearing to settle in for the long haul. I pulled myself together a little and smiled at her. "Scully, I'm fine. Please, go back to work."

She pursed her lips and shook her head slightly. "I don't know, Mulder. I don't think you should be alone."

"You want to sit here watching me take a nap? Because that's what I'm going to do, I swear." I turned sideways on the couch and stretched out my legs, gently nudging her with my feet to dislodge her.

"Okay, alright, Mulder. I get the hint. But you _call_ me if you feel any worse."

"Yes, ma'am."

She glared back at me but left, finally. The moment I heard the elevator ding, I called Skinner.

Kim answered briskly, her voice softening when I gave my name. "Oh, it's good to hear you're home, Agent Mulder. Feel better soon, okay?" She patched me through to Skinner without waiting for a repsonse.

"What can I do for you, Agent Mulder?"

"Sir?" Annoyingly, my voice wavered a little, betraying my nervousness. "I remembered."

"What did you remember, Agent Mulder?" More of his damned caution. All the same, I didn't want to go into detail on his office line.

"Walter. I remembered."

A soft gasp over the phone line. "I--," he faltered, and I held my breath. "I'll bring you dinner tonight. I'll be there by six."

"That would be great."

We hung up, and I went to take a shower, feeling obscurely like I was preparing for a first date. More than anything, I wanted to scrub away the miasma of sick hospital smells. I needed to feel like a real person, not a collection of suspect body parts, not a patient. A man.

He arrived at ten of six, bearing take-out containers from the Italian place near the Hoover. Two baked spaghettis with garlic bread, two salads, two iced teas. He made sure we would eat well, if nothing else, and I was glad, since nearly everything in my own refrigerator was spoiled. The dinner was delicious: plenty of melted cheese, lots of garlic, mildly spicy sauce. After a week of dry, baked chicken and questionable beef stew in the hospital, I thought I was in heaven.

When we were both down to nibbling on the last crusts of the garlic bread and stabbing random lettuce leaves, I broached the subject at hand. "You never did tell me why you were being treated at the hospital."

He sighed, reluctant. "The nanocytes. They'd been reactivated."

He told me the story, then, of Krycek threatening him and reactivating the submicroscopic machines in Skinner's blood. I made a heroic effort to keep from shouting, "I knew it was Krycek! I knew it!" Skinner explained that his body had formed an immunity to the nanocytes and rejected them, effectively curing him. I was suspicious that there was more to it, but I could tell, from years of dealing with him, that he would go no further. That impressive jaw was locked up tight, on the issue on his nanocyte infection, at least.

For a few moments, we both clammed up, and I was furious with myself for not seizing the moment to go forward. "I need..."

He just lifted an eyebrow in my direction, silently urging me to continue.

"I want to know what happened while I was in the hospital the first time. I've seen the _charts_, and Scully's given me some details, but I can't form a narrative of where I was, what I was doing. I know Scully was away in Africa during most of the time I was there, so there's only so much she was able to tell me. I need to know what happened. I have to know what happened to me. I have to know what they did to me!"

By the time I finished speaking, I was up, pacing my living room, my heart pounding in my chest. Skinner came up behind me, placed his hand on my arm, steered me over to the couch and gently pushed me down. He sat next to me, and I slumped forward, head in my hands.

"Relax, Mulder. You look like you're about to keel over. I'll help you fill in the blanks as much as I can. I can't answer all your questions--"

"Can't or won't?" I couldn't help myself. I sat up, meeting his eyes. His hand came over to rest lightly on my back, and I flinched away, immediately regretting it.

He pulled his hand back into his lap. "Can't, Mulder. Beyond what the doctors have been able to conjecture, I don't know what was done to you after you were taken from the hospital. What I do know is what _we_ did with you before you were taken. I'll start from the beginning."

He told me about Diana calling him, asking him to come to the hospital, about how they kept me in an observation room. He described me pacing, screaming. That fit with my memory of being angry and overwhelmed, so I urged him to continue. He told me that Scully left for Africa at that point, and he talked the doctors into letting him enter the room where I was being kept.

I pressed him for details, and he reluctantly admitted that I'd attacked him and left a note in his pocket, written on a scrap of cloth. As he spoke of it, I remembered. I remembered how hard I worked to keep my thoughts in line long enough to write two words. I asked him what I looked like, and the phrase he used was "contained motion." I nodded, thinking of how I felt compelled to move in all directions at once, how eventually it became impossible for me to move anywhere.

He described my request for Kritchgau, as well as what Kritchgau had to say about that. I could tell he'd been uncomfortable with administering the drug to me, but I'm glad he did. As he told me, I remembered the shock of awareness, the crystalline quality of everything as I was suddenly able to sort the massive input flooding my brain.

He told me about the tests, about their frantic attempts to avoid Diana and the doctors, about the seizure I had, which clearly had scared the hell out of him. After that, they prohibited him from seeing me. They kept him away so they could take me. They kept him away because he'd been protecting me. They hurt him because he'd been protecting me. They hurt him.

Skinner broke into my miserable reverie by once again venturing to lay a gentle hand on my back. This time, I didn't flinch away, so he began to slowly rub his thumb back and forth, creating a warm spot on my back, relaxing me fractionally. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat. "Why do you make me feel so safe?"

He was quiet for a moment, taken aback, maybe. "I--I try, Mulder. God knows, I haven't always _kept_ you safe. Maybe you shouldn't feel that way around me."

"No, no, you would never hurt me. Everyone else... Diana... But you and Scully, neither of you would hurt me. I'm sure of it."

"You want to believe?" Gentle mocking, a slight smile in that hard face.

"No, I do believe. That's one thing I do believe." Certainty, absolute. "I heard it in my head."

He choked a little and then spoke, his voice sounding pained. "I didn't know if you would remember. I didn't know if--when you came out of it--you would remember what I, what we both had said."

"I remember that, and I remember what you did. What you gave me."

"What I gave you?"

"Safety, love, warmth, images of us...happy, together, happy together." I grinned at him, and he blushed. Assistant Director Walter Skinner blushed! He might have been embarrassed by admitting his imagination. Bureaucrats aren't expected to possess such tools, but I always knew that he was more than he seemed.

"I wish I could have helped you more, but that's all I could think to do."

"It was beautiful," I whispered, and then I leaned in and kissed him, pressing my lips to his mouth delicately, until they softened. With that tacit permission, I parted my lips and felt his lips moving along with me, his hand on my back pulled me in closer. I braced myself with a hand around his well-muscled bicep and pressed forward with my tongue. He tasted of garlic and tomato and basil and something musky, almost bitter, but not unpleasant, something exquisitely male.

I finally pulled back, gasping, relishing the lingering taste of him on my lips. "Hold that thought," I told him, grinning, "I'll be right back."

I used the bathroom and then headed for my bedroom, just to check on the state of things, make sure it wasn't too messy. I looked at the bed, though, and memory flashed--Diana, moving through the room, removing her shirt, an argument and then a jolt, and pain.

A sudden pain gripped my head, and I fell to my knees--"Fuck!"--grasping the bedpost to keep from keeling over entirely. The room swam sickeningly, and then Skinner was there, holding my shoulders steady as I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. I closed my eyes and just hung onto him for a minute, and then the pain began to recede, leaving everything bearable again.

When I opened my eyes, he peered at me sharply and then began to stand.

"I'm just going to get my phone, Mulder. I'm calling your doctor. You shouldn't be home."

"No! No, it's just, it's just a bad one. They're not coming so often anymore, only when I remember something big. I have some pills for the pain..."

"Where?"

"On the counter in the kitchen."

"Okay," he nodded, appearing to reluctantly agree. "Let me get you in bed, then I'll get the pills."

"Is that the line you use on all your head-case agents?" I was trying to be witty.

"Stop that, Mulder." He steadied me as I climbed up onto the bed and then left the room, returning quickly with two pills and a glass of water. I took the pills, and then he helped me out of my shoes, jeans and shirt and into the bed, under the covers. Tucked in by A. D. Skinner. Thinking back, it really wasn't the first time.

I lay back in bed and blinked my eyes at him; the pills were beginning to take effect. He considered me with a wonderful mix of sternness and concern.

"I'll bring you lunch tomorrow, Mulder. Expect me around one." I nodded, feeling sleep coming on fast. "Any requests?"

I mumbled something that wanted to be "chickety China the Chinese chicken" and then dropped off to sleep. This is the reason I hate taking drugs: I end up quoting silly radio songs to my boss after kissing him and then practically passing out on him. At least I slept--dreamlessly, as far as I remember.

He showed up the next afternoon with a bag full of Chinese food--pepper steak for him, chicken and broccoli for me, wonton soup and egg rolls for us both. I was feeling great. The minimal pill-hangover had worn off after my shower and coffee, and my head was clear and pain-free. He examined me visually as soon as he put the food down on the counter.

"How are you feeling today, Mulder?"

"Good, great. Frisky."

"Behave yourself, Mulder," he growled at me. "Obviously we overdid it last night."

Inwardly I groaned. That cursed caution had reared its head again. "No, no, I told you, the headaches come when I remember things. And only sometimes."

"What did you remember that almost earned you a trip to the ER?"

I sighed. Fuck. I didn't want to talk about it. "Just before I ended up in the hospital the first time, I had an attack of the, you know, voices. I was in the middle of investigating that fragment at American University, and I was in pretty bad shape. Somehow, Diana found me and took me home." I gulped back my displeasure at the memory. "She, well, came onto me, and I was about as far from being in the mood as it's possible to be. I said something to her that wasn't very nice, and she slapped me. I slapped her back, and she hit me with a taser shock."

The surprise and anger were clear on his often-expressionless face. "Agent Fowley did _what_?"

I nodded. "I don't know how, but that shock ruined any control over what was going on in my head. I have no idea what really happened, but the world just went kind of crazy on me, and then I was in the hospital, pissed off and under-dressed. Christ, I'm not hungry anymore, and you brought all that food."

"Come here." He reached out and pulled me into his arms, chafing away the goose-bumps that had arisen at the memory of Diana's deception. I felt his hand move in the back of my hair, reminding me that the present was a good deal more pleasant than the past, that I was in the present with him, that he would protect me until I was capable of protecting myself.

We stood there for several minutes, the quiet of the kitchen around us, the hard tile of the floor pressing up through my shoes. The refrigerator kicked in suddenly, and I realized the passage of time. I nodded against his shoulder and pulled away. "Yeah, okay. Let's have lunch."

We ate, and he told me that he'd been keeping an eye out for potential X-files while I'd been gone. He told me about a small town in Colorado that complained of a mysteriously disappearing domestic pet population. The town council was certain that the nearby Department of Defense radar tower was drawing in UFOs, and aliens were stealing their cats, dogs and rabbits. Skinner was sure that coyotes were responsible for the disappearances, but he thought I might enjoy the trip.

His voice was magic. By the time he was done with his story, I had slurped down my soup and some chicken, and I was back to feeling frisky. I spent five years, give or take, wanting my boss, watching his perfect ass as he strode into meetings, appreciating his broad chest when he was in my face, bringing me into line. I would sit in front of my videos at night, watching skinny blond women, getting myself off, coming every time from the mental image of my tall, bald boss holding me down, his strong arms around me.

I squeezed some duck sauce out onto my plate and pulled my egg roll from its paper wrapper. I glanced up at Skinner to make sure he was watching me and then swirled the end of the egg roll into the little pool of sauce. I raised the egg roll to my mouth and sucked off the duck sauce before taking a small bite and swallowing it. I noticed Skinner's face getting a little flushed and repeated the process again, lazily moving the egg roll until it was lightly covered with sauce and then decadently, thoroughly tasting it.

I was going for a third try when I heard Skinner growl, "No." He reached over and took the egg roll from my hand and then stood up, standing above me. "Now." He took my hand and pulled me up to him, quickly kissing away the traces of duck sauce from my mouth, replacing the sweet taste with a spice-tinged musk of desire.

We moved into the living room, and he nimbly undid my belt and pulled down my pants before pushing me back onto the couch. He dropped to his knees, locked his hands on my hips, and then I was engulfed by his hot, moist mouth. He pulled on my hips, making me fuck his mouth, his tongue swirling on the head of my penis, his lips moving up and down the shaft. I could barely breathe, and my climax approached fast and undeniable.

The thrusting rhythm he created had me locked in its grip. He moved one hand to supplement his mouth on my dick, and the other hand reached up under my shirt, teasing my nipple into a hard nub with his rough thumb. I shuddered at the added stimulation and came, sliding down, sweat-slick, on the warm leather of my couch. His hands braced my hips as I rode out the receding waves of pleasure. I came back to myself to find him smirking up at me like the cat that had got the cream.

"Jesus, Skinner, you sure know how to suck a man off."

He hoisted himself up to the couch and kissed me, oddly enough, on the corner of the mouth, primly as an aunt. "My name's Walt."

Once I felt that my bones would carry me again, we moved into the bedroom. He looked at me, questioningly. "You okay?"

I didn't know if he was asking about my post-orgasmic state or my post-Diana state, but I nodded--yeah, I was fine. Nearly done-in by lethargy, but quite fine. I removed the rest of my clothes, helped Skinner--Walt--Walt out of his, and got into bed, pulling him in beside me. As sleep washed over my sex-addled brain, I instinctively curled in close to his solidity and heat, feeling his smooth skin under my hands and then little else.

I woke to find that Walt had extricated himself from my grasp but was sitting beside me on the bed, sipping a cup of coffee and watching me. I felt refreshed and happy after my post-coital nap. Walt had put his briefs on, assumedly to potter around my kitchen making coffee, but I could see through the thin fabric that he was half-hard, probably had been for some time. He'd treated me to a positively seismic blow-job earlier, but we hadn't done anything for him.

I sat up, yawning, and leaned over him, prying the coffee cup from his hand and placing it on the beside table.

"What, do you have a 'no drinking in bed' rule?"

"No, but I think we have some more pressing business to attend to." I swept my eyes over his erection.

He shook his head. "No, Mulder, no. You're recovering--"

"I'm fine."

"You're _recovering_. You just got out of the hospital."

"I'm _fine_. I could suck you off. That's not too athletic."

"Do you want to suck me off? Is that what you really want?" His eyes burned into me, compelling the truth.

"I want you to fuck me."

"Mulder, I want to make love to you, but you're recovering."

I moved myself to straddle his legs so that I could look him straight in the eye. I placed my hand on his jaw and rubbed slightly with my thumb, feeling the slight friction of stubble. "You are not going to hurt me. I've done this before. You've done this before, yes?"

He turned his head toward me and kissed the palm of my hand. "Yes. Yes, okay. But, Mulder, we take this slow. Not like earlier. I'm so sorry--"

"If you apologize for making me feel that good, you're out of here. And take off your shorts."

"Yes." He lifted his hips under me, and I helped him remove the flimsy white briefs. "But this time we're taking it slower. If I hurt you, none of this is worth it."

His concern was touching. Irritating, but touching. I kissed him briefly on the lips and then moved my mouth down, kissing along his rough jaw and his throat, feeling his groan of arousal through the vibration on my lips. One hand braced me on the bed while the other tangled in the grey-brown hair fuzzing his chest, a prodigious amount of hair indeed. I tilted my head to suck at one nipple, feeling it spring to life in the moist heat of my mouth. Skinner groaned again, deeply, and I could feel the rumble in his chest. I moved my oral attentions to his other nipple, keeping the first one erect with my fingers.

Finally abandoning his chest, I kissed a line down his taut, well-defined stomach until I arrived at his cock, which was by then very hard, very impressive, very ready. I looked up into his face; he was panting and beautifully flushed. "Fuck me?" I asked him quietly.

"Yes, oh God, Mulder, yes. On your stomach. Oh, shit, where...?"

"Drawer, by your right hand." He pulled out a condom and some lube, while I arranged myself on the bed, facedown, my knees up under me a little, a couple of pillows to support my head. I felt his hand caress my back, moving from my shoulders down to the top of my exposed ass.

"You're so beautiful." He whispered it, almost as though he were talking to himself and not to me. His hands left me but returned, bringing the startling coldness of lube. He tentatively worked the lubricant into me with one finger, and it felt so good to have him, or part of him, inside me at last. I had waited years. I had waited years to have Skinner making love to my ass.

He stretched me slowly, maddeningly so, with that one finger and then introduced a second, occasionally brushing my prostate and sending shimmering sparkles of pleasure through me. I was open and relaxed and ready. "In me now!"

"Relax, Mulder, I said slowly."

"Please, _please_, I've never been so ready."

"I can see you're going to be the death of me," he murmured, but then he pulled his fingers from my ass, and I could hear him preparing himself, rolling on the condom and coating it with more lube. He kissed me tenderly in the middle of my back, and then I felt the head of his cock entering me.

It consumed me--the feeling of being taken by him. After a couple of breathtaking thrusts, he was deep inside me, and I felt filled to my fingertips. I wanted to weep, it felt that wonderful. "I love you," I whispered to him, and I felt his hands brace on my rib cage as he pulled out of me and pushed back in again smoothly.

He sat up a little more behind me, angling his thrusts so that he brushed my prostate each time, and I was getting hard again, getting harder. I started pumping myself in time to his quickening pace. I could sense him starting to lose control, that precious control he holds so close to his heart. His thrusts came faster, faster, he yelled my name and then he came, jerking inside me, shuddering above me until I came again, too, more quietly.

After a moment, he pulled out of me and removed the condom, tying it off and throwing it somewhere. I turned around onto my back and stretched out my legs, pulling him down flat on top of me like a blanket. Lying on top of me, sacked out and oblivious, he was everything I'd wanted so much during these last terrible weeks. Warmth, comfort, security, safety. And love, I think, too.

We would have to talk later, about what our intentions were, about how we were going to handle our relationship, considering the kinds of lives we both led. There were things I had to tell him, things that didn't seem appropriate for a second date, so to speak. I felt changed, since my return. I couldn't explain it, but I felt overwhelmingly that I didn't want to be old and alone. I didn't want to *die* alone.

I knew there would be infinitely more talking, but also more kissing and more sex and more take-out dinners. At that moment, though, drowsy again in his arms, I pulled the comforter over us to keep him from getting cold as the sweat dried on his back. I closed my eyes and breathed in the delicious scent of spent desire and relaxed further into his blanketing weight. I had come in from the cold to find his encompassing warmth, and I knew I'd never be alone out in the cold again.

THE END


End file.
